


Like an Anchor That Drags You Down

by lindenmae



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Universe, Feral Derek, Horror, Insanity, M/M, Nightmares, Post 3a, Psychological Horror, Sexual Content, Underage Sex, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 00:46:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindenmae/pseuds/lindenmae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense? --now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.”  -Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There are a lot of stories about Stiles coaxing a feral Derek back to humanity, but what if Stiles is the one to drive Derek feral in the first place?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like an Anchor That Drags You Down

**Author's Note:**

> This is a horror story loosely inspired by The Tell-Tale Heart and as such, it deals with themes of insanity inadvertently caused by another character. There is no resolution and the ending isn't happy but no one dies and it's left fairly open.
> 
> I'm pretty sure nothing in this is worse than anything that's actually happened on the show and the events of this story are even similar to Lydia's S2 plotline, but just in case warnings are:
> 
> Mental illness, violent thoughts, underage (technically because Stiles should be turning 17 soon and that is still below the age of consent in California) even though ages are not explicitly stated in the fic, Peter being the creepy creeper I love, and again no happy ending. This is a horror story. At least it's supposed to be. If I am missing anything let me know.
> 
> HAPPY HALLOWEEN

It’s been six months since they left Beacon Hills and it feels like the longest since something’s tried to kill him since he was fifteen. They aren’t running from anything. They just walked away, he and Cora, and it’s been like a weight lifted. Nothing’s tried to call them back… until now. It’s only been six months.

He keeps having this dream. Cora tells him to ignore it, that it doesn’t mean anything. He’s a wolf, not a seer; he doesn’t have visions, he has nightmares. He tries at first, to ignore it, but he can’t shake the insistent feeling that it means something more. His gut is telling him to mind the dream, that he needs to pay attention. Cora tells him his instincts are shit for a wolf, that she doesn’t know how he survived as long as he did, that probably if he did the exact opposite of what his instincts are telling him his life would be a lot better. It’s not cruel if it’s true. 

Trying to remember every detail of the dream is like trying to catch smoke in his hand. They slip through his grasp before he’s even fully awake, blurry backgrounds and an ever-changing sequence of events. But certain elements remain the same every time. He comes to with a name he doesn’t know on his lips and Lydia’s scream ringing in his ears. He can see her clearly – the shamrock hue of her blouse reflected in her wide, terrified eyes; her hair twisted into a plait and thrown over her shoulder, emeralds in her ears. 

It feels like a warning. He knows what the banshee’s scream means, and he can only think of one reason why the one banshee he knows should be invading his subconscious like this. Every day he doesn’t go back to where the rest of his family died feels like a mistake.

He starts to see her when he’s awake, turning the corner ahead of him, only when he rushes to catch up it’s only a stranger, not even a redhead. He sees her out of the corner of his eye when he’s focused on something else, in the flame of a candle, in his own reflection in the mirror. He’s obsessing and he knows it. Lydia’s not here, hasn’t come to find him to shriek his fate in his face. But he can’t shake the feeling, can’t ignore it even under the force of Cora’s disdain. 

“It could be for someone else,” he says finally, icy claws of fear keeping a constant grip on his heart. 

“They’re not your pack anymore, Derek,” she says, but he can see her already caving. “This is probably some sort of fucking self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s going back to Beacon Hills that’s going to kill you,” she says even as she dumps her duffel in the back of the Toyota, mouth set and eyes stormy.

He knows she’s probably right, but he’s never been very good at self-preservation.

The closer they get the worse the dreams become and the more he convinces himself he’s made the right decision no matter how badly he wants to turn tail and run the other way. He’s not sure which option is the most cowardly anymore – striding right up to the gallows without putting up a fight or not taking the chance to escape his fate when he spots it. The last night before they cross the city line he wakes up with the too quick steady thump of a heartbeat in his ears, lingering well after he’s returned to consciousness, Lydia’s features already fading into the recesses of his mind. It’s not his, amped up out of panic, and it’s not Cora’s, slow and heavy with sleep in the next bed. It fades before he can grasp it, just the drumbeat to the soundtrack of his dream.

They cross into Beacon Hills after just a week. Derek bought the loft and never sold it so they go straight there and it only looks a little more decrepit than it did when they left. The skylight is still broken and it’s rained since then, so the water damage is worse in some places than the rest, but he doesn’t think he’ll be able to bring himself to do anything about it. There are too many shadows in this place that he can’t fix with plaster and paint. 

…

He goes out to the old property the very next day, Cora following and rolling her eyes with every step. 

“You’re being a fucking masochist. This is stupid,” she grumbles behind him, but she stays with him and that’s a comfort. 

The house is still there, crumbling and overgrown even more than before. There’s graffiti on the walls now and it’s almost beautiful how the brightly colored words contrast with the charred wood and the green earth. It’s been too long for the current generation of kids to remember the tragedy well enough to feel guilty about defiling an entire family’s final resting place. The name Hale doesn’t mean anything to them anymore. Stiles was probably the youngest person to automatically attach any notoriety to his name, because Cora would have been in his class and because that’s just the type of person he is - the type of person who would go out looking for a body.

It took an hour this morning for the heartbeat to leave his head after he woke up and he caught himself moving in pace with it, like a war drum measuring his steps. It’s gone now though and he can’t call it back even if he tries. Out here it is blissfully quiet, the peace only broken every so often by the sound of a bird’s call or the chatter of squirrels in the trees where they know the threat on the ground can’t reach them.

Derek lays his palm against the door, parts of it still peeling red paint, right against the fading sigil of the Alpha pack. He still doesn’t understand what they wanted with him if Deucalion was always after Scott, but they gave him his sister back. He won’t thank them for it, but it’s a good thing. 

“Can we go, Derek?” Cora asks impatiently from behind him, fists on her hips.

“Yeah. Yeah, we can go, just… Hold on.” 

He brought a marker with him, one of the big ones meant to make posters, and he uncaps it now. He draws a triskele over the Alpha’s mark, doesn’t waste time to make sure it’s perfect. It fits right in with in the rest of the graffiti. No one will notice it there, but it makes him feel better, like he’s taking his life back in pieces.

…

He didn’t have any intention of announcing their presence once they returned. He knows what Cora thinks, that he dragged her back to a city that should be nothing more than a graveyard to them so that he can die here too, and he doesn’t say anything to refute that. They stay in the loft for a few days, ordering in food and waiting for something that may or may not be coming, until Cora loses her patience and storms out. He doesn’t try to stop her; he couldn’t control her when he was an alpha, he definitely can’t do it now.  
She comes back eventually, cheeks a little rosier. She says she didn’t talk to anyone, but she can’t be certain no one saw her. She says it with a deliberate shrug and defiant eyes that tell Derek she was definitely seen, that she did on purpose. 

It isn’t an hour before the pounding starts on the door, and Derek has to cover his ears just at first, flashes of Lydia’s face invading his brain tinted crimson at the edges. Cora stares at him for a moment, stopped dead halfway across the room, eyebrows drawn tightly together. She doesn’t go for the door again until he straightens and lets his hands curl uselessly in his lap, and even then she never takes her eyes off of him.

He knows who’s on the other side of the door, knew it before the knocking started. He should raise his eyes, try to maintain some amount of defiance, but he’s too tired. The dreams are starting to keep him from sleeping. If Scott takes his hanging head as a sign of submission then so be it. He’ll never be Scott’s beta, just like Scott was never his, but he doesn’t have the energy to fight him right now.

“Derek?” Isaac. Footsteps over the threshold and down the steps, stopping shy of the bed where Derek is sitting.

“You came back.” Scott is still standing by the door, next to Cora. If he understood how to be an Alpha, let alone a werewolf, he’d be here to reprimand them for crossing into his territory with no warning, for not seeking him out as soon as they got back, but Scott’s done everything his own way. He sounds happy to see them.

“Not for long,” Cora says. “We have a problem.” But even she sounds happier.

“There’s no problem,” Derek interjects before Scott can ask, finally lifting his head. His dreams are his own, not Scott’s to decipher and save him from. He didn’t come back to Beacon Hills because he thought he could find help here, just answers, just death probably.

“Okay.” Scott doesn’t look convinced, obviously. There are bags beneath Derek’s eyes and he hasn’t shaved since they came back. He may have lost weight as well, muscle mass at least. Even though he’s still convinced that coming back was what he needed to do, it hasn’t been good for him. 

He wants to ask how they are, how they’ve been, but he can’t quite find the words to frame the questions. They don’t know him as a person who cares, not about small things. He tried to show them, he really did, but his actions and his words never agreed and they chose to hear and not to see, and they were probably right.

Isaac is still hovering, clearly torn between his old Alpha and his new one. Derek knows Scott wouldn’t begrudge Isaac’s lingering loyalties, but Isaac probably does it of himself. Derek’s better at comforting now, having Cora has reminded him of how hard Laura used to try to bring him out of himself. He never truly let her though and then he lost her. He’ll never stop regretting it.

It isn’t much to lift his hand in Isaac’s direction, barely an exertion of energy, but it’s grand to Isaac, who probably still covers up his insecurities with bravado even though Scott has got to be better for him than Derek ever could have been. His face clears like a storm has passed and he almost lurches forward to grasp Derek’s palm with his own. It’s more than a handshake and far less than a hug, but it’s something and it’s good.

“It’s not a problem,” he says again, when Isaac’s fingers finally slip from his own. “Not for you guys anyway. I have some demons I need to confront. That’s all.”

“Demons?” Scott perks up, not obviously.

“Metaphorical demons, Scott,” Derek says, and it feels normal.

“We can help, Derek, even if it’s not a physical threat. We can listen. We’re brothers, Derek. Remember?”

He almost wants to laugh at that. It’s the second time Scott’s said it, but it’s not true, no matter how badly Derek wants it to be. He can see Cora huffing angrily behind Scott, lips pressed so tightly together they’re turning white.

“Tell them, Derek,” she insists. She still thinks they’re just dreams but even she can admit they’ve gotten too bad.

“It’s _nothing_. I can handle it,” he says forcefully, glaring at Cora, for pushing him, for bringing Scott. 

Scott doesn’t look happy, but maybe he’s learned some things in the last six months of being an Alpha because he doesn’t push, just looks at Derek with soft eyes that are too full of understanding for Derek to bear. He bristles, but Scott just shakes his head. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

Isaac lingers for a long moment before following Scott out, but he doesn’t say anything and when they’re gone Cora won’t even look at him.

…

The thing is, he doesn’t know how to even go about finding answers. He can’t tell Scott that he’s come back to Beacon Hills to wait for death. This is his burden to bear and he understands that Cora’s angry, but this isn’t Scott’s problem. It doesn’t affect the pack, the pack that Derek is not in. Deaton could help, he supposes, but the man is not emissary to the Hales anymore. He’s Scott’s. He’s never been particularly helpful where Derek is concerned. Derek doesn’t like to think about how much of that mistrust is directly related to stupid things he did when he was alone. Laura knew who Deaton was to them after all, but Derek had no clue and he should have, would have if he’d been paying attention when he was a teenager.

If his dreams are real, if they’re really a sign of some impending doom, then he figures there’s little reason to try to stop what’s coming. The Banshee’s warning is never wrong; it’s foolish to hope he can get around it somehow. And if they really are just nightmares then, his life is a nightmare so he shouldn’t be surprised. 

He lays in bed awake for a long time the next morning, waiting for the aftereffects of the dream to subside. His head is pounding and even though he’s wide awake the noises of the dream still feel like they’re crashing in on him from within the loft, like if he covers his ears he’ll be able to muffle them, but that only makes it worse, makes it louder. Each thump of that nonexistent heart feels like it’s crushing his skull until it finally subsides when the sun is already high in the sky. When it fades it’s gone completely and the silence it leaves is as deafening as it is welcome. 

He resolves to leave the loft, to get away from Cora’s disapproving scowl. He isn’t looking for anyone, doesn’t need anything, just to be someplace where the last person he loves isn’t angry with him. He walks down Main Street with his hands jammed into his jacket pockets and his shoulders hunched, hoping he won’t be recognized. This place is too small to keep secrets.

He hears her before he sees them, her voice a little shrill, too high pitched to be normal conversation, but she doesn’t sound upset, not yet. He can’t quite make out the words she’s saying, they’re still too far away and around a corner, and the soft murmur of a response is indecipherable, but he knows who it is without thinking. They come around the corner with their heads tucked together, coffee cups clutched in their hands. 

Lydia’s hair is braided like the last time he saw her, the tail draped over her shoulder and soft tendrils framing her pink tinged face. Derek stops dead on the sidewalk, one foot still raised where he was about to step off the curb and cross the street, trying to avoid them. It’s a warm day, Derek didn’t need his jacket when he left, had just grabbed it as sort of a security blanket, somewhere to put his hands balled into fists. Lydia is dressed more for the weather in a shamrock green blouse with emeralds in her ears.  
It feels like his lungs have frozen. He can’t take a breath, can’t move, can’t even blink to try and will the image away. His own heartbeat rises in his ears until it’s all he can hear, their voices lost in the crash of blood through his veins. He’s going to collapse, his body is going to give up on him if he can’t get a breath soon, but he can’t will his lungs to expand. All he can focus on is the image of her in front of him, like she’s just stepped out of his nightmares and onto the sidewalk. 

“Derek?”

“Derek?”

“Derek!”

They’re right in front of him now, faces open and confused. He finally hears his name over the rush of blood in his ears, finally gets a breath in his chest, and it feels like he hasn’t taken one in hours, days. He comes back to the world in an instant and realizes there’s a hand on his arm, just above his elbow, gripping tightly, grounding him somehow.

“Stiles.”

“Hey man, welcome back to the land of the living.” It’s said with a laugh but his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. There’s something else there, something calculating, something that seems to cut clear through Derek and he doesn’t like it.

“I’m fine,” he says, and shakes his arm a bit until Stiles figures it out and lets his hand and the subject drop.

“So, you’re back,” Stiles says instead of whatever Derek can tell he really wants to. 

“For now.”

“Oh, ominous. Great. Well if you’ve got another baddy after you, you’ve definitely come to the right place, because that’s what we’re here for. We’re pooling our allowances to get our own Mystery Machine and everything.” Stiles sounds rueful, unhappy.

“It’s not. It’s not like that. No one’s after me.” That he knows of.

Stiles narrows his eyes but he doesn’t pursue it. “It’s good to see you, Derek. I – we missed you,” he says instead. It doesn’t sound like a joke, there’s no lie.

“I need to talk to you,” he says to Lydia instead, who’s been watching him shrewdly throughout the entire exchange, instead of giving his shock at Stiles’ words time to show on his face. “Later. I’ll find you.”

He walks away before she can respond and it isn’t until he’s nearly back to the loft that he realizes the heartbeat in his ears is too rabbit-quick to be his own. 

…

He wakes up panting, Lydia’s scream and the foreign heartbeat warring for prominence in his ears. His eyes flash open and he struggles to sit, the sheets glued to his skin with sweat. The room around him is dark, black shadows bleeding over the moonlit gray walls. Something solid takes shape at the foot of his bed, a shadow with an outline unrelated to any of his furniture. His waking panic hasn’t receded , freezing his limbs in place as his eyes try to make sense of what they think they’re seeing. It isn’t Lydia, too tall and too lean.

He tries to convince himself there’s nothing there even as the shadow seems to look at him, turning its smoky head so that the moonlight coming through the hole in Derek’s ceiling lights upon one side of the shadow’s face. Derek recognizes the tilt of those lips, the moles that dot pale cheeks, the one amber eye regarding him with unmistakable fear. Derek opens his mouth to call out and the shadow disappears like it had never been there, leaving only the echo of a heartbeat in its wake. He screws his eyes shut, tries to simultaneously preserve and forget the image.

The next time Derek opens his eyes it is to the pale light of morning. Nothing in the loft is so much as disturbed. It is as if nothing out of the ordinary occurred the night before. With the images fuzzy in Derek’s mind, already fading, he’s no longer sure anything did. 

…

Lydia eyes him appraisingly, stirring honey into her tea with calculated precision. She purses her lips and cocks an eyebrow when he doesn’t say anything immediately, obviously amused, secretly curious. 

“You couldn’t have taken your uncle with you?” she chirps finally, before blowing on her tea. Derek has a death grip on his own paper cup of coffee. It’s still hard for him to look at her without the phantom burn of wolfsbane in his throat.

“He wasn’t invited.”

Her lips turn up at the corners at that. “So, are you planning to tell me why we’re here or are we just going to stare at each other until our drinks get cold? Because I have so many better places I could be.” She’s trying to play like everything that happened six months ago has left her unaffected and she’s good at keeping up the mask, but Derek can see the little tremors in her hands, the way her lips tremble.

“Have you screamed for anyone lately?”

She flinches backward, not enough to draw any attention to them from anyone else in the store, but Derek is perceptive enough to see the way her eyes widen and her mouth turns down.

“Lately as in the last six months? Because then of course I have, because this place is an actual beacon for the supernatural and bad things didn’t stop happening just because you left. If you mean in the last week though, then no. I haven’t.” She narrows her eyes at him and leans forward again, the green of her irises sparkling in the low light. “Why?”

It’s not a request for information, it’s a demand. 

“It’s not- I just wanted to know, what I’ve come back to.”

“Mhmm, and does this have anything to do with _why_ you’ve suddenly returned?”

Derek shifts uncomfortably in his chair, the cardboard coffee cup in his hand folds in his grip and the brown liquid inside spills out over his hand. It’s scalding and he barely feels it.

“I’ve been having dreams… about you. I thought maybe – It felt like I needed to be here.”

Something softens in her face and she almost reaches out as if she’s going to touch him, then thinks better of it and hands him a napkin instead.

“All I do is scream, Derek. I can’t tell the future and I certainly don’t know how to invade someone’s dreams.”

“Right,” he says, shoulders hunched. He doesn’t know why he thought talking to her would give him any answers, she’s been used and made a pawn in everything just as much as he has. 

She opens her mouth as if to speak, closes it, bites her lower lip. She does reach out then to grasp his fingers with her own and squeeze, then she stands and walks out the door, leaving Derek alone with his feelings of dread.

…

Stiles finds him in the preserve. That’s probably not true. The preserve is vast and there’s no way Stiles knew he was here, but it feels like he’s being found when Stiles catches up to him. He was just walking, trying to clear his head of the clutter and replace it with the soothing sounds of the woods. He hears Stiles coming long before he sees him, crashing through the underbrush like someone far larger than he is. Derek suspects it’s on purpose, a kindness to him, as if Stiles could sneak up on him even if he tried. 

“Derek. Hey.” He’s a little out of breath, cheeks flushed pink, almost overcoming the purple half-moons beneath his eyes. 

“Stiles.” He doesn’t slow. There’s a thrumming in the air around him, drowning out the bird song he had so hoped would give him some peace. It starts like a hum but quickly turns to a drumbeat the closer Stiles gets – rabbit quick and all too familiar.

“Lydia said you’ve been having nightmares.” 

He hadn’t expected it to stay a secret, once he’d told her. She doesn’t owe him anything and he hadn’t bothered to ask. But why she told Stiles of all of them. Maybe they’re closer than he knew.

“It’s nothing. You don’t need to worry about it.”

Stiles slumps a little, shoulders hunching up around his ears as if to ward off a chill that isn’t in the air. His hands are shoved deep in the pockets of his hoodie, one that doesn’t look new, though the shirt beneath isn’t one Derek has ever seen, better fitting than what he used to wear. It’s a subtle difference, but Derek has gotten better at paying attention to subtleties in the last six months, at least he’d like to think so. He’s made so many mistakes because he couldn’t see inconsistencies that were glaring him right in the face. So he looks now, without any guilt. 

Stiles is leaner, a little taller, if he wasn’t hunching he might even be of height with Derek. He’s shuffling like it’s too much effort to lift his feet up all the way, but the smile on his face is deceptively bright, like if he forces it enough it will chase the shadows from his face. 

“You know. You obviously came back for a reason. A lot’s changed since you left, Derek. We’re not the same ragtag group of misfits that we used to be. Things haven’t gotten better, but we – we have. We’ve gotten better, Derek.”

“You don’t look better.” He regrets the words before they’ve even passed his lips. Stiles flinches like he’s been slapped, pink lips falling apart in a silent ‘o’ of shock. 

“Obviously you didn’t learn any manners while you were off playing Kerouac. I’m _fine_ , I’ll have you know. If you’re fine then I’m fucking dandy,” he mutters, eyes flashing amber in the dappled sunlight. 

It strikes Derek then, what a beautiful wolf Stiles would be. He’s thought about it before, abstractly, what a loyal, what a smart, what _good_ wolf, but Stiles’s eyes are already amber, his wolf’s eyes would be _gold_. Derek hasn’t really regretted giving up his alpha status. He was never meant to uphold that burden and he wasn’t any good at it, but in this moment, just this one, he does regret . Stiles could never have been his beta, will never leave Scott’s side for anyone, but Derek can ruminate, can feel woe for the beauty that’s being wasted. 

“It isn’t your problem, Stiles,” he says, grumbles, reverting back to the Derek from before like a teenager throws a tantrum. 

“Yeah, you say that, you _always_ say that actually and it always ends up being too big for you to handle by yourself. When are you going to figure out that you don’t have to do everything on your own?”

It’s all true and he knows it but he can’t bring himself to say the words Stiles wants to hear, not with what he’s starting to suspect. 

“They’re just dreams, Stiles. Everybody has them.” 

Stiles looks skeptical, rightly so. “Yeah, right. Just dreams.” He sounds rueful, there’s obviously something more there, something deeper in his tone, but Derek doesn’t have any right to explore it. 

“If we get hurt because of you…” It’s a tired and empty threat, so much so Stiles doesn’t even finish.

“You sound like Scott.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Derek didn’t mean it one way or the other so he just smirks at Stiles’ steadfast loyalty and plows ahead, no concern for if Stiles can keep up.

“It wasn’t an insult.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, the new and improved Derek Hale, not everything he says is an insult but he still doesn’t trust anyone.”

“Shut up, Stiles.”

“Yeah, no.”

Derek rounds on him, so quickly Stiles startles and is forced to take several unsteady steps backward. 

“ _Stiles._ I _trust_ you. But they’re just dreams.”

It stops Stiles short, surprise slackening his jaw, but that quickly morphs into something soft and pleased that twists Derek’s gut. How awful must he have been for such a small statement to have such a great impact. 

“If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine,” Stiles says softly, but his eyes are hard, boring holes into Derek’s own.

“What?”

“You’re not the only one having bad dreams, Derek.”

…

“What if the dreams aren’t about me?”

“Then you should probably stop being such an asshole and tell the others.”

Cora spits a pomegranate seed at him then turns her back, out of whatever little patience she ever had for him.

…

He doesn’t _find_ himself outside of Stiles’ window. It’s not like he took a walk and this is where he wound up and he doesn’t know why his body brought him here. He had to get out of the loft, away from Cora’s glaring judgment, but he would have eventually come here anyway. He can hear Stiles’ heart beating through the glass, quicker than most and it feels familiar in his ears. The thump of it is regular, steady, and Derek assumes Stiles is sleeping. Once upon a time he might have known for sure, but that time has passed. The Stiles in that bedroom, though only six months older, is not the Stiles that used to drive Derek crazy. The calm of his heartbeat doesn’t necessarily mean anything and Derek doesn’t dare peek inside just in case Stiles might see him.

He leans his head against the wood next to the window pane and closes his eyes, matches his breathing to the beat of Stiles’ heart, in and out, until his limbs grow heavy. Stiles is okay. They’re only nightmares.

Something wrenches him awake and he tenses so quickly that he nearly loses his balance on the roof. It’s still dark, the moon low in the sky, and it takes even _his_ eyes a moment to adjust. He looks around and tries to pinpoint the location of whatever woke him, ready to bound off the roof and into action. He tries to take a few calming breaths to get the idea of danger out of his mind, but the air remains tense, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. He’s grown so used to it by now, he doesn’t realize immediately that the heartbeat he’s hearing isn’t part of his usual dream, that the quick and terrified rhythm he’s used to waking up with is actually coming from inside.  
Derek doesn’t think before opening Stiles’ window, doesn’t spare a thought for what he might find, just slips inside and to the side of the bed in the space of one breath. Stiles is sitting up, one side of his face framed by moonlight, and he’s staring at Derek, eyes wide open and full of fear.

“Stiles,” Derek whispers and gets no response. His night vision was better as an Alpha, but it’s still better than a human’s and he can see how Stiles’ pupils are blown wide and the rapid rise and fall of his chest beneath his t-shirt. 

“Stiles!” He tries again, a little louder, and on impulse he reaches out to fit his palm against the curve of Stiles’ neck, to feel Stiles’ pulse jump against his fingertips.

Stiles blinks once when Derek makes contact with his skin. His brows furrow in confusion or concentration and when he opens his eyes again, they’re clear.

“Derek? What the hell, dude?”

“You were having a nightmare,” he says, suddenly aware that he’s kneeling on the bed and leaning in very close, and his hand is still half wrapped around Stiles’ throat.

“Uh, okay. That does not explain why you’re in my bedroom to wake me from that nightmare. Not that. Um.”

Stiles’ pulse is still jumping but the fear is gone, his scent changing from sour to musky almost instantly. Stiles’ skin looks almost silver in the moonlight, pulled taut across his cheekbones – too taut. He’s lost most of his baby fat in the last few months, but in the dark he looks almost gaunt, haunted. Derek reaches up, unthinking, to fit the pad of his thumb in the hollow of Stiles’ cheek, the rest of his hand curling around the back of his neck to cup the base of his skull like something precious.

Stiles stops breathing and Derek realizes what he’s doing. He’s off the bed in an instant and out the window before Stiles can draw a deep enough breath to call his name.

…

It becomes a habit. Derek can’t sleep without Stiles’ heartbeat to lull him, sated by the knowledge that as long as he can hear it outside of his own head then Stiles is fine. He’s becoming dependent but the routine of it calms him too much to stop. The dreams don’t come as forcefully either when he sleeps there instead of in his own bed in his own apartment like the regular human being he pretends to be. 

…

“Have you figured out how you’re going to die yet?”

He hasn’t spent the night at the loft in over a week, only returning in the early morning after a few restless hours spent curled against the roof tiles outside Stiles’ room. Cora hasn’t asked where he goes and he can’t be sure if she feels sorry for him or if she simply doesn’t care enough. 

He curls his upper lip, exposing his blunt human teeth, and feigns a laugh. “I thought they were just dreams.”

“Does he know you’re pulling an Edward Cullen on him?” So she does know, and this seems infinitely more like her, saving the information she’s gleaned on her own and sharpening it to use against him like a weapon.

He thinks about denying it, puffs out his chest like he has any dignity left to protect, but sighs instead, lets his shoulder slump and his head hang. 

“I don’t know.”

“Stop martyring yourself, Derek! If you leave me alone again, I swear to God…” Her voice cracks and she doesn’t finish the threat, stomps away with her anger wrapped around her shoulders like armor rather than let him see her even a little vulnerable.

…

“I think the dreams are connected to Stiles somehow,” he says over another cold cup of coffee, knee bouncing beneath the table. 

Lydia arches a brow at him over the compact she’s holding up, doesn’t smudge the lipstick she’s applying at all. 

“You actually think these dreams are premonitions?”

“I don’t know. But when I first saw you the other day you were wearing the exact same outfit as in my dreams, down to the earrings. That has to mean something.”

She looks a little surprised at that but it’s Lydia, she doesn’t let anything faze her for long. He doesn’t know why she’s the only one he seems capable of talking to, why his tongue comes untied in her presence and no one else’s. He’s asked himself a million silent times why he hasn’t talked to Stiles’ and he doesn’t have an answer. He has little reason to trust Lydia, little reason to think she cares about helping him except that it’s her face he’s been dreaming of, her scream. 

“It’s rare to remember a dream in vivid detail if you aren’t dreaming lucidly. The shock of seeing me on the street probably tricked your brain into believing I was wearing the same outfit.” She says it so succinctly, like there’s no other explanation besides the logical one, like she doesn’t have visions of death, but she takes note of his reaction and her eyes soften. “Why do you think this is about Stiles?”

“Because he’s there too. In the dreams. I can see you but. He’s there. I can sense him, his heartbeat. And he’s scared.”

“Of what?”

“I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.”

…

Derek sleeps dreamlessly until Stiles’ rapid breathing and accelerated pulse draw him awake, his own heart thundering against his ribcage in time with Stiles’. He can hear it clearly and though it’s too fast, Derek revels in it, because it’s real, because it’s not in his head. 

He hasn’t actually climbed through the window since that first night. He doesn’t _want_ Stiles to know he’s out here. He’s not watching Stiles’ sleep, not comparing the curve of his cheek to the moon or any shit like that. He’s not Edward Cullen. He just can’t sleep without knowing Stiles’ is okay, that his dreams don’t mean anything. He doesn’t have any intention of crawling through the window this time either, until he hears Stiles whisper his name.

“Derek?”

He freezes for a second, before his body decides that escape is the best option, prepares to leap from the roof without him having to make a conscious decision, but Stiles whispers for him again and he can’t make himself go.

“Derek. Please.”

Stiles is sitting up in bed, legs crossed and the blankets bunched in his lap. He watches Derek unfold himself into the room in silence, eyes wide and haunted by shadow. 

“Sorry,” he says, before Derek has even fully straightened up. 

Derek stands there awkwardly, shoulders hunched, embarrassed that Stiles knew he was outside, ashamed that he thought he was getting away with anything. 

“I told you I haven’t been sleeping well,” Stiles says with a shrug, like that explains why he wants Derek in here with him.

“You’re there, in my dreams,” Derek blurts and immediately hunches in on himself. Stiles’ eyes widen and a ghost of a smile plays about his mouth.

“You know, normally I would do something with that, make some quip about you wanting my hot bod or something, but I’m way too tired.” He still looks pleased with himself even though his back is rounded and his shoulders are drooping like his own weight is too much to hold up. 

Derek’s heart flutters and it feels like he’s swallowed something solid and it’s caught in his throat. “They’re _nightmares_.”

“No, Derek, don’t lie for the sake of my self-esteem. I don’t need it.” Stiles chuckles to himself but there’s little humor in his voice and Derek wants to go to him, let him lean some of his load against Derek’s shoulders.

“Lydia’s screaming and you’re there and I can’t see you but you’re scared,” he growls instead, staying rooted to the spot. 

“Is that why you’ve been sleeping outside my room like a stray cat? Are you worried something’s going to happen to me?”

He should take offense to the cat comment but he’s tired too so he nods and forces himself to look Stiles in the eyes even as they widen, the amber of his iris just barely visible around his dilated pupils.

“Derek,” he says softly, unfolding legs that are longer when they’re uncovered than Derek was expecting, and sliding from the bed with a grace that Derek isn’t used to seeing from him. He comes so close that Derek feels compelled to take a step backward, but the wall is at his back and there’s nowhere to go. Stiles takes Derek’s hand and presses it palm down against his chest, right above his heart. “I’m fine, Derek. A little drained, but I’m fine. I promise.”

Stiles’ heart beats solidly against his hand -thump thump thump- and Derek curls his fingers inward, blunt human fingernails catching against the fibers of Stiles’ shirt. 

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” Stiles repeats, curling his own fingers around Derek’s and pulling him toward the bed. Derek goes without protest, lays his ear over Stiles’ ribcage and goes back to sleep with Stiles’ heartbeat echoing against his skull.

…

They’re lying on the roof a few nights later, arms pressed tight from shoulder to wrist, fingers twisted together. Derek can’t remember who took the initiative there, it was something that happened unconsciously on his part, but he likes it.

“Do you think the dreams are related to the Darach?” Stiles asks softly, keeping his eyes on the stars.

He doesn’t and he says so, because he doesn’t want to stain whatever it is that’s happening between them with the memories of his past mistakes. He wants to believe that, for once, he’s doing something right.

“Jennifer’s dead.”

Stiles is silent for a few minutes, chewing on his bottom lip like he does when something is bothering him. He sighs, heavy, and turns his head so he can look at Derek’s profile. Derek keeps his gaze straight, eyes locked on the moon.

“I’m sorry. For what I said that night, in the hospital. About-“

“It’s fine,” Derek interrupts him because he doesn’t want to hear their names, not out of Stiles’ mouth, not again. He surprises himself with how fervently he doesn’t want Stiles’ to think of him the way he so obviously did that night in that moment. He wants to be someone Stiles can count on, someone he trusts. He squeezes Stiles’ fingers, hooks their ankles together. “I haven’t been having the dreams anymore.”

It’s the truth. Lydia’s screams haven’t woken him in weeks. He’s starting to believe it was really all in his mind, just his subconscious bringing him home, where he’s meant to be. He turns his head, meets Stiles’ eyes, and smiles. And Stiles smiles back.

…

They fall into an easy rhythm that alternately leaves Derek rejoicing and uneasy. Everything that’s ever seemed too good to be true has been for him and he can’t quite shake the shivers that keep reminding him of Kate, of Jennifer, of Laura and Paige and Erica and Boyd. But he’s happy, deliriously so. There’s nothing after them at the moment, and Stiles’ hand fits in his like they were meant to twine around each other. Stiles smiles for him, quick and bright, when he thinks Derek’s not looking, like he’s as amazed at what’s happening as Derek is. The shadows beneath both of their eyes have faded to lilac because they both sleep better with someone who understands their nightmares there to curl their arms around.

Early afternoon light leaves the loft draped in shadows that play like a battlefield over the floor. They don’t bother Derek as much anymore. He’s only alone for a few hours at a time now. He can manage that. He’s reading, half reclined on his bed, waiting for school to let out and for Stiles to come to him. He isn’t surprised when he hears Stiles’ heart first. It’s like a melody stuck in his head by now, soothing away unwanted thoughts. He hears it in the tap of a branch on the window, in the clip of his own shoes on the ground.  
The beat starts off faint but gets louder as Stiles gets closer. Derek smiles and puts his book down, assuming Stiles has cut out early. He starts to slide off the side of the bed and go to the door, expecting any second for Stiles to knock or call out to him. Derek didn’t hear any footsteps but he knows Stiles is out there. Everybody’s heartbeat is different and he knows this one as well as his own by now. It’s there, right outside the door. Derek slides it open, ready to ask Stiles if he’s hungry, if he wants to go get food or order in and stay there, but the space outside Derek’s door is empty.

He frowns, looks first one way and then the other, straining like he can see through the walls and down to the sidewalk, as if Stiles could have made it to Derek’s door and then run away without making a sound. But Derek had heard Stiles’ heart beating clearly and yet the space in front of his door remains vacant and the heartbeat is gone as if Derek had imagined it.

...

“Were you here earlier?” Derek hedges hopefully when Stiles finally shows up, grin wide and food already in his arms so Derek doesn’t even have to ask.  
Stiles narrows his eyes above his smile as he unpacks boxes from bags. “I was at school,” he says, like it’s obvious, like there’s nowhere else he could possibly have been.

“Right.”

“Was someone here earlier, Derek?” Stiles’ grin starts to slip and the corners of his eyes start to crease. Derek doesn’t want that at all.

“No. No one was here. I just thought I heard someone at the door earlier but no one was here.” He invades Stiles’ space at the counter, presses their hips together until they’re breathing the same air and Stiles smiles for him again.

“Hi.”

They haven’t really done this yet, but it feels pretty inevitable. Derek fits his hand against Stiles’ neck and brushes his thumb along the cut of his jaw, stopping only to press against a random mole until Stiles’ eyes twinkle. Stiles’ tongue darts out to taste his bottom lip and Derek chases it without thinking, pressing his mouth firmly against Stiles’, catching a gasp as if Stiles is surprised this is happening. Stiles drops the plastic silverware he’d been holding, Derek hears it clatter against the floor, and twists his fingers in the fabric of Derek’s shirt. It doesn’t feel as new as it should. It doesn’t feel like they’ve been doing it forever either, but like they should have been. 

…

Wanting to be around Stiles means having to be around Scott, but it’s not as bad as he had built up in his head. Scott treats him like a person and not like someone lesser just because their eyes are different colors. Scott doesn’t expect him to be pack, but Derek can tell that he wants it. Scott McCall started this adventure with one friend and now he’s got what amounts to an extended family. People love him and lean on him and he never bats an eye. Scott will be an alpha like Derek’s mother was, like Laura would have been. The alpha everyone deserves, not one who can’t care for them.

He catches Scott watching him with a solemn gaze more often than he appreciates, like Scott thinks if he just waits him out Derek will eventually give in and talk to him, but he doesn’t push. Scott never asks him for anything Derek isn’t comfortable giving, which is most things. He never says anything outright about the change in Derek’s and Stiles’ relationship and that Derek can be openly grateful for. Derek sits closer to Stiles than is probably necessary most of the time, but he doesn’t take any more liberties than that, not wanting to force Scott’s tongue. Derek and Scott will never be the brothers Stiles and Scott are, but Scott would never do anything to hurt anyone that he didn’t have to, not Derek and never Stiles.

…

It happens again in the grocery store, doing something as mundane as deciding between brands of peanut butter when he hears it two aisles over. He thinks maybe Stiles might be there with his father. There are so many different people in this store at this moment that no one heartbeat can stand out clearly, not even Stiles’. He hears it and he can pinpoint it to an exact location but it’s muted, layered over with the beats of so many other hearts. Derek forgets the peanut butter, stalks to the next aisle and the aisle after that just to see him. If he’s with the Sheriff Derek won’t interrupt, but just the thought of catching a glimpse of Stiles’ face makes his own heart pick up. But there’s no one pawing through the plethora of potato chip bags that line the shelves two aisles over. It’s completely empty.

Derek can still hear the heartbeat though. Maybe he got it wrong. His senses aren’t as sharp as they used to be. He checks every aisle, speed walking through the store, only taking the time to peek around corners before moving on, until he’s done three laps around the whole thing and people are staring. Stiles isn’t there.

Derek drops his basket and runs out, thinking maybe, just maybe, that rabbit quick thump is coming from somewhere else, somewhere further away. He gets through the doors, but once he hits the open air the heartbeat stops. His ears are filled with the sounds of cars and squealing metal cart wheels, children asking for candy, but not Stiles. 

…

He pushes Stiles down against the mattress, drapes his body heavy over Stiles’ own, keeping him pinned. The room smells like teenager, like must and musk and sweat, like _Stiles_. Stiles has his head thrown back, the bedclothes are rucked around their knees. Derek’s jeans are still on but Stiles is in his boxers that do nothing to hide his growing appreciation of Derek’s ministrations. Derek wedges his knee between Stiles’ legs, gives him something to rut against and kisses his way down to the space below Stiles’ collar bone. He can feel the skin here jumping beneath his lips with every beat of Stiles’ heart and he reminds himself of the way it sounds, of the rhythm it pursues. He memorizes it, breathes with it, keeps his forehead pressed against it as his tongue darts out to circle the darkened skin of Stiles’ left areola. 

Stiles cries out, unabashed because the Sheriff isn’t home. Stiles says that he knows about werewolves now and Derek obviously figured as much, after everything he did to help Stiles and Scott get their parents back, how could the Sheriff not know after that. He doesn’t let his mind drift far though; thoughts of Jennifer turn sour in his stomach and this isn’t the time. Stiles is doing his very best to wrap himself as much around Derek as he possibly can in this position, trying to lift himself off the bed by clinging to Derek like letting go would cause him physical pain. 

There are a million things Derek wants to do to him, to his skin where it’s unmarked by moles and freckles and scars, to his long, long limbs that look somehow graceful even when he’s flailing, to his red bitten lips, and the curve of pink flushed buttocks. But Derek can’t bring himself to focus on anything but all of the places where he can find a pulse – beneath Stiles’ left nipple, the inside of his wrist, the thin skin just below his jaw, his groin. Derek searches all these places out and lets his lips linger there until he can tap the same staccato beat against the back of his teeth with his tongue, until Stiles is swearing and threatening bodily harm to Derek’s person from the feel of Derek’s stubble on the inside of his thigh. 

Stiles comes with his boxers hanging from one ankle and his cock in Derek’s mouth. Derek’s belt is still cinched tight around his hips and his heart is beating even harder than Stiles’ is.

…

He’s forced to sleep alone sometimes, because Stiles still has school and extra curriculars that he has to maintain, and Derek’s body can’t run on sheer willpower alone. He dozes while reading in bed, not meaning to, and wakes with a start when he feels the bed dip next to him. He expects Stiles or Cora, but there’s no one there, the bedclothes smooth except for where his own body has rumpled them. He lets his claws and fangs extend anyway, breath coming too quickly. His isn’t the only heartbeat in his head, but he knows he’s alone. He’s learning to read the signs. There’s no scents that don’t belong, no sounds besides the creaking of an old building and the ambient noises of the town that reach Derek through the hole in his ceiling. Stiles isn’t here but Derek can hear his heartbeat anyway.

He gets up, slides from the bed in a zombie-like state, eyes unfocused. He follows the heartbeat through the door and down the stairs, keeps walking without thinking until he hits the woods and he keeps going even after that. His feet are bare but he doesn’t feel the cold, focused on following the heartbeat though he never seems to get closer. He shuffles through fallen leaves and undergrowth, closes his eyes to better hear the faint thump of a heartbeat he knows isn’t real but that he can’t bear to ignore.  
He opens his eyes at the Nemeton. He doesn’t know how he got here, hasn’t been here since he was a kid. The soil around the roots is rusty brown and there’s dried blood splattered on the wood. The ground nearby is uneven and Derek knows this is because Jennifer made it cave in while the guardians were inside. 

The heartbeat is strong here, as if Stiles was standing right beside him. He almost feels the phantom touch of fingers twining with his own. Stiles isn’t here but Derek’s not by himself, in the dark, in the woods. 

“She crawled all the way here from the distillery with her throat slit. I suppose she believed it could save her again. They found her body curled up amongst the roots.”  
Derek tries to picture Jennifer there as he’d last seen her, after Deucalion slashed her neck. He’d thought she was dead then but he’d been distracted just like always.

“So the prodigal son returns again, and he doesn’t care to let his own beloved uncle know.”

Derek looks over his shoulder at the shadows, sees blue eyes staring back at him from the dark. He flashes his own in return, two broken men, killer wolves, staring at a tree stump in the middle of the woods.

“It doesn’t look like much, but the power that’s been awakened within it is unimaginable. You’ve missed quite a bit since you left, dear nephew. Kanimas and Alpha wolves were the least of this town’s problems.”

Peter materializes from the shadows, comes to stand at Derek’s side. Derek somehow feels both warmed and chilled by his presence. The heartbeat is still pounding in Derek’s ears, but Peter doesn’t seem to hear it.

“They gave up part of their souls to complete the ritual. Did you know that? Our very own true alpha has, of course, only used it to strengthen his resolve to be an unrelenting hero, but the other two.” Peter’s smile is sharp. “Well, they aren’t wolves. They don’t heal quite like we do.”

Derek hears the far off crunching of leaves first, his senses still sharper than his uncle’s. His claws come out without warning, teeth elongate. He fights off the full shift but it isn’t easy, his body unwilling to listen to his conscious commands. Peter visibly startles beside him before his eyes narrow and his lips purse. He doesn’t leave, just watches Derek struggle until the footsteps reach them and the pounding in Derek’s head becomes too loud to bear. He sinks to his knees in the loam just as he hears his name being shouted. There are arms around him, a body at his back keeping him upright.

“Stiles!”

“What did you do to him?” Derek hears Stiles angrily demand next to his ear, ignoring his name being called, and he starts to calm down. He can feel Stiles heart beating against his back. Stiles is here. The heartbeat is real. Stiles is here.

“I can assure you this was nothing to do with me,” Peters says. “I think the better question might be what did _you_ do to him.”

Stiles stiffens and Derek finally looks up, sees the smirk on Peter’s face, the looks of surprise and indignation on the faces of Scott and Isaac, standing rooted on the other side of the stump. Peter levels a last knowing look at the pair of them on the ground before he steps back into the shadows.

“What did he mean, Stiles?” Derek mumbles, eyes on the spot where his uncle disappeared.

Stiles doesn’t say anything, just tightens his arms around Derek’s shoulders.

“Stiles, what did he _mean_?”

“I don’t know,” Stiles finally whispers , too quickly. Derek can feel the lie against his back.

…

He does his best to stay away. He needs some time to clear his head and organize his thoughts, but the heartbeat follows him wherever he goes and it won’t let him think, won’t let him breathe without the phantom ache of a heart that’s not his own in his chest. It’s been barely over a month since he and Cora came back and he doesn’t know how he got here. He can’t retrace his steps and figure out just what exactly brought him to this point. He has this insane, innate need to protect Stiles but from what? There’s no threat. There probably never was. 

He slashes at his walls and his furniture with claws he can’t retract until Cora physically tries to restrain him, begging him to stop with desperate shouts right in his ear. He snarls at her with eyes that have been blue for days and flees the loft before she can call Scott to subdue him. Scott is not his alpha. His alpha died when her house burnt down. 

The heartbeat hasn’t left him since it brought him to the Nemeton and now it skips on a lie every fourth beat. He punched a hole in the door the third time he thought Stiles was behind it, only no one was. He’d thought maybe it was his anchor for a moment. He could pick Stiles out of a crowd, know he was safe from all the way across town because Stiles was special to him, something other than his anger and despair to hold onto. But how can a lie be his anchor? It isn’t the actual beat of Stiles’ heart that he’s been hearing, but something else, something alien that has invaded his head and taken root deep within him. 

He has to know. He has to know what Stiles did before he can’t take it anymore.

…

 

He tracks Stiles’ freshest scent trail to his bedroom because he can’t trust his hearing anymore to tell him. He can make out voices though as he gets closer, though he has to concentrate too hard to separate them from the drumbeat of Stiles’ heart. 

“There _is_ something wrong and Peter told him it was my fault!” Stiles is shouting and Derek can almost picture the way he speaks with his whole body.

“How could it be your fault, Stiles? He was miles away from here. What, did you find a magic lamp and wish him back and this is the requisite way it goes wrong?”

There’s a pause, the heartbeat gets harder, quicker, guiltier.

“Maybe. I mean, I’m not exactly Aladdin here, but I think that might be the closest metaphor for what is actually happening.”

“That’s ridiculous, Stiles.”

“As ridiculous as anything else that’s happened to us in the past freaking year and a half, Lydia? As ridiculous as you being an actual faerie and your ex-boyfriend, the homicidal my size monitor lizard? As _werewolves_?”

“Stiles-“

“I love him, Lydia. And I don’t even know if it’s real or if it’s just because I made a wish that got all twisted up in the dark parts of my soul that I sacrificed to a freaking tree! I just wanted him to come back,” he says softly.

“That doesn’t explain Lydia’s role.” 

Derek’s hackles go up at the sound of Allison’s voice. There’s a persistent nagging in the back of his mind and getting weaker by the second that insists he can trust her, but his instincts hone in on hunter and Argent and his claws sink into the soft earth below the window.

“I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with her using Derek to bring Peter back from the dead. Maybe it’s just what she is. She’s a harbinger right?”

“Of death.”

“There’s been a shit ton of death in Derek’s life, guys. If we can accept that it’s plausible that some sort of magic tree mumbo jumbo got into Derek’s head just because I wanted it to, I’m pretty sure there’s not a whole lot else that can be considered reaching at this point.”

Derek can’t deal with the uptick in Stiles’ heartbeat anymore, how it’s getting faster and faster, and Stiles is barely taking time to breathe as he talks. He needs to go to him, wants to simultaneously comfort him and stop him altogether. Derek slams his fist against the side of the house so hard that it shakes and howls-a long, lonely thing that draws Scott and Isaac and Cora out of the trees where he hadn’t even sensed them hiding. A door slams off to the side and then Stiles is in front of him, reaching out for him without a second thought.

“Derek?!”

He bares his teeth and Stiles flinches and that’s not right. He didn’t mean to do that, but when he tries to concentrate on controlling the shift, he loses focus on the rest of his thoughts. Stiles starts to back away and Derek follows without thinking, staying right in Stiles’ space, his nose just above the soft skin below Stiles’ jaw where he can see the jump of his pulse, can almost taste the blood pumping through his veins. He could sink his teeth in right there and they would go so softly, all that pale skin parting beneath his incisors like butter, and he could rip that pulse point right out and then there would be no heartbeat to hear anymore.

“Derek?” Stiles’ whisper is timid, his voice cracks, and the hand he raises to the back of Derek’s head is tentative at best.

“What did you do to me, Stiles?” Derek growls, and it’s so guttural even to his ears, he doesn’t recognize his own voice.

“I didn’t- Derek, I don’t-“

He steps forward, claws out and he can feel the fur rippling down his back. He backs Stiles up to the porch and only stops when he sees the silver tip of a sharpened arrow aimed right between his eyes. Allison’s grip doesn’t waver but her lips do.

“Don’t make me, Derek. Please.”

He wrenches himself away, falling to all fours and throwing his head back to howl, to drown out the constant thump thump thump that had, for a moment, been something that soothed the beast within him, even as his bones break and change and mend.

Derek looks back at Stiles for only a second, sees the fear in his eyes that Derek dreamed about, that he _put_ there, and with his last human thought Derek forces himself to run for the trees before the wolf can lash out and make the heartbeat stop... forever.

**Author's Note:**

> please don't hate me too much /o\


End file.
